


new gods

by sinequanon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Dimensions, Alternate Universe, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 23:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11046870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinequanon/pseuds/sinequanon
Summary: A good deed sends Stiles and Lydia to another dimension and away from the broken remains of their former lives. They're not thrilled about this new life, either, but they're definitely not going hesitate to take advantage of the situation.





	new gods

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a bit odd. Part of its oddness is intentional, because both Lydia and Stiles are discomfited by their situation, and also because the two of them are a bit darker than usual, but the pacing feels weird, too, so...

“This is going to be more complicated than we thought.”

Lydia said the words in anger, with determination flashing in her eyes, because she’d been kept away from Stiles from too long, and, at this point, anyone else who came between them was going to meet a messy end. It had taken weeks of careful plotting and manipulation to get them this time alone, in a deserted park just inside the neutral zone, and as much as Lydia wanted to spend the next hour kissing her husband, they needed a plan to deal with this.

 _This_ , was, well, not getting home--because there wasn't a home to get back to--but making something else better for themselves. Most people probably would have tried to fix things, or at least tried to make friends in their new home, but frankly, the two of them didn't owe anyone here _anything_.

The people here were just strangers wearing familiar faces, and they mattered very little in the scheme of things.

Honestly, if Stiles had known that helping that nest of byangoma was going to throw he and Lydia into this weird, supernatural Romeo-and-Juliet fantasy hybrid world, he might have thought twice about helping the little things.

(Actually, he still would have saved them, but he would've made absolutely sure not to bleed on them to accidentally activate their sight. Physically, he probably did them a favor; magically, not so much.)

Those cute little baby fortune-telling birds had taken one look at Stiles and Lydia, decided that their life was unacceptable (for whatever reason), and then _changed_ _it_.

Unfortunately for he and Lydia, that meant being sent hurtling across dimensions, where not only were the two of them no longer married, they also had no way to contact each other because they were on opposite sides of a childish clan war that had no purpose that either Lydia or Stiles could see.

In a strange way, the roles they filled in this world were not unlike the roles they had played in high school:

Lydia was rarely seen in public because, as a princess of the Phoenix clan, she was a rare, precious jewel that needed to remain unsullied by all of the undesirables in the other clans.

(In the privacy of her room, Lydia plotted how to get to Stiles and, on days when she was feeling particularly vindictive, how to destroy the clan system altogether. The segregation of humans from shifters from magic users from other folk was archaic and counterproductive to progress; if these people couldn't help themselves be better, she was more than willing to show them the error of their ways.)

Stiles, as a member of the Snake clan, couldn't get close enough to lob a paper airplane in Lydia's direction, let alone talk to her. It didn't help that all of the clans (including his own), already considered Stiles a dangerous outlier to the system, unwilling to follow the well-established norms set forth by the four noble clans. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and let Scott be the shining example of nobility that his dad was looking for.

(Stiles loved his dad in any world, really he did; but he was going to do whatever it took to get Lydia back; even learn complicated, obscure magic and befriend creatures that made most people snicker derisively at him. People could badmouth him all they wanted; he and Lydia would be the ones on top in the end.)

As for the other clans, the Tigers, made up mostly of humans, liked to keep to themselves; and the Dragons, comprised entirely of shifters, fought often enough among themselves that they were rarely allowed in public in groups larger than four by their Clan Matriarch.

That was fine with Stiles and Lydia; anyone who couldn't (or wouldn't) help them reach their goals was of no use to them. Which, considering they weren't even allowed to see each other, was everyone.

The one time Lydia had asked her mother about Stiles, the older woman had balked and immediately summoned the clan healer, thinking Lydia was feverish; the only time Stiles asked Scott about Lydia, his friend almost passed out from laughing too hard at Stiles's unintentional joke. After that, Stiles didn't dare find out what his dad’s reaction would be, and Lydia refrained from asking anyone else, either.

(It was probably a blessing that neither Lydia or Stiles ever saw more than a passing glance of the Hales during those first few weeks; the werewolves always traveled with pack and neither Stilinski could afford to be distracted by a certain blue-eyed werewolf yet.)

Because after all of this trouble, if this new world was truly a gift that the byangoma had given them, they were going to have everything they’d ever wanted, even if they had to turn the whole world upside down to do it.

<> <>

The best thing about Dragon Market was that it was--at least on the surface--anonymous for the patrons. The shifters wore their animal faces as they sold their wares, and anyone not of Clan Dragon wore a mask to conceal their identity. Everyone was treated equally, regardless of station; anyone caught fighting in the Dragon Market was dealt with harshly and immediately, and more than one non-Dragon noble had been thrown out over the years for testing that rule.

Peter Hale adored market days, even when he was forced to work them. The market was always flush with stupid little nobles who thought that glittery masks could hide their identities from the superior senses of his kind, and most of them were so taken with the many fruits and trinkets not found in their kingdoms that they paid twice what they were worth just for the novelty of them.

The magic folk could hide their scents if they tried hard enough, but that, too, sent shifter senses tingling just from the abnormality of it. He loved to watch the Snakes in particular as they were simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by the offerings at his table.

The talk of all the Dragons in the market over the past few months, however, were the lovers.

They always arrived early in the morning, and stayed until market’s close. They always walked the market from east to west, always wore the same masks and sets of clothes, yet it had proven impossible, thus far, to discern their identities.

To shifter noses, at least, the lovers smelled unlike anyone else in the entirety of Beacon Hills. Their scents were entwined in a way that it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended without looking at them, and it was heady and _dark_ in a way that even the magic folk could sense, given the way their eyes cautiously followed the pair around the market. The woman was small, but carried herself in such a way that implied that any move against her would result in swift retaliation. The man always laughed his way through the day, but anyone who looked closely enough could see that his eyes were careful, calculating, even as he draped a loose arm around his lover's shoulders.

He smiled for everyone; she smiled only for him. He smelled of pine and petrichor, and she of copper and jasmine; it was a heady mix, one that Peter found himself looking forward to each week, especially when all of his attempts to uncover their secrets had remained fruitless.

Only once before had they stopped at Peter's booth, barely a month after they had started visiting the market. They had approached him with sure steps, immediately dismissed his lesser wares as frippery, and focused on his most powerful talismans, made with care by the pack’s emissary. Unlike the fools who were swayed by pretty colors, the lovers touched each talisman, lightly, one by one, heads tilted just-so to hear the sounds of the stones.

Peter found himself utterly entranced by the motion.

After spending a few minutes with the stones, the woman's gaze had landed on Peter, and the werewolf had to swallow back the sudden rushing in his ears.

“Which do you like?” she asked, gesturing to the talismans. Her cherry-red lips titled in a smirk, and Peter licked his lips.

“I don't think that's for me to say,” he replied as neutrally as he could, but his flicked down to where the man's fingers were tracing lightly over his wares, and the werewolf couldn't stop himself from imagining those fingers caressing other things.

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” the man said, his eyes shining like polished amber in the sun. “Surely, there is one that has...caught your eye?” he finished with a sly grin that made Peter’s heart stutter enough that the leopard in the next booth over shot him a concerned look.

The pair wandered away before he had recovered enough to answer, and although Peter had often sensed their watchful eyes on him, they had never returned to his booth.

Until today. Today, when they once again stood before him with their curious, clever, knowing gazes that Peter couldn't stop dreaming of. The werewolf couldn't help but stare as the man's careful fingers brushed slowly down the woman's arm, and the woman smiled her cherry-red smile.

Peter realized with sudden clarity that this was a test; of what, the werewolf didn't know, but he was certain he wouldn't like the consequences if he failed. Still, to be taken apart and broken by these two...it might be worth it.

Sometime during Peter’s musings, one of them had pulled some of the Yukimura’s plums, and the beta couldn't help but watch in rapt fascination as they took turns biting into the juicy fruits and licking the juices from their fingers as they looked over Peter's wares, and finally turning to the werewolf himself.

“You should think about what it is you want, Lord Hale,” the woman advised after her treat was consumed. A tiny bit of juice from the plum still clung to her lips, and it took every ounce of his self-control to keep Peter from leaning forward to kiss it away.

“How much are you willing to fight for the things that you desire?" the man queried with a smirk.

“Things are going to be changing very soon,” the woman continued, and Peter’s breath froze in his lungs as she slid her mask up just far enough for him to see her face.

Peter Hale--ruthless enforcer of Clan Dragon--gasped loudly enough for people at the other end of the market to hear, only to whirl back on his visitors in shock when no one paid them any mind at all.

For just a moment, Peter fought down the inexplicable urge to run.

“Not everyone is going to survive,” the man also lifted his mask, just a little, and if Peter had been human, he might have had a heart attack at the sight of the Golden Princess of the Phoenix Clan and the Black Prince of the Snakes watching him with their dark, assessing gazes.

“What--” Peter choked out, utterly confused, even as the deep, calculating part of his brain told him that the match made perfect sense. 

 _How did they even know each other_?

“We were close once, in another life, the three of us,” Lydia said softly, threading her fingers through Stiles’s, “and we will have back what we lost, and more.”

Peter watched the shadows cross briefly over Lydia’s face, the tightening around Stiles’s eyes, before they smoothed out into something frighteningly intimate. Now was not the time--and if the looks on their faces were any indication, it might never be the time--but he resolved in that moment to find out the story of this other life whenever the pair in front of him were willing to tell it.

For now, though, Peter smiled. “A triad from three separate clans will cause quite the stir.”

The grins he received in return were sharp. “Oh, we're counting on it. It's no less than we deserve."

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the poem "Peter's Field" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
> 
> Next week: a fantasy-esque Derek/Stiles fic, and possibly a little something else.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
